On Monday in San Diego, the veterans’ committee will cast its ballots for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Among the voters are eight existing Hall of Famers, four club executives and four members of the news media. They will debate the merits of candidates passed over by the writers — Dick Allen, Jim Kaat, Luis Tiant and others.

Hundreds of writers are also voting this month on the more recent class of players, and those debates are more nuanced. The only question that should matter, of course, is whether each candidate belongs in Cooperstown. But for the writers, filling out a Hall of Fame ballot has also become a matter of strategy and morality.

It is strategic because of the rule that limits voters to a maximum of 10 choices from a ballot with 34 names. And it is tied up in morals because of the steroid era that the Hall of Fame asks the writers to judge.

The privilege to vote is granted to 10-year members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. I have been a member for 17 years, but do not vote because The New York Times reasons that its reporters should cover the news, not make it.

But a committee of writers who do take part is now deciding whether to recommend changes to the rule that restricts voters to the 10 selections. Some of our most thoughtful members make up the committee, and whatever they decide will come from a good place. They care deeply about this.

The most sensible answer is to let voters choose any player they believe is a Hall of Famer, without a limit. And unless that happens, the process will remain unfair to the current candidates.

Everybody knows the main reason this is even an issue. Many players used performance-enhancing drugs in the era now up for examination. This greatly damages their chances of reaching the 75 percent threshold needed for election, but also creates a backlog as long as they attain at least 5 percent of the vote and remain on the ballot. Their presence takes votes from other players.

Some of these tainted candidates are disappearing. Voters have officially rejected Rafael Palmeiro, who fell off the ballot last year, on his fourth try, by mustering only 4.4 percent. The dwindling totals of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa suggest they will soon vanish, too.

But here is the problem: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are not about to come off the ballot any time soon. And as long as the ballot is limited to a maximum of 10 selections, their presence makes the exercise deeply flawed.

There is no debate about their excellence as players. Bonds was the best hitter of his era, Clemens the best pitcher. Their Cooperstown worthiness is about something else, something that divides the writers and always will. The Hall of Fame asks voters to consider sportsmanship and character, and there are no signs those instructions will ever change.

As a result, Bonds and Clemens are being dragged down by their ties to performance enhancers. If not for those links, they would get something close to 100 percent in the Hall of Fame vote; instead, in their two previous times on the ballot, they have received between 34 and 38.

And with a 10-year limit for candidacies, and voters holding the ballot for life, it is virtually impossible to imagine the writers ever clearing a pathway to Cooperstown for either of these players.

Yet it is equally hard to imagine the names of Bonds and Clemens coming off the ballot. It seems as if there will always be a modest percentage of voters — certainly more than 5 percent — who look past the steroid question when it pertains to players as dominant as Bonds and Clemens were.

So unless the Hall of Fame repeals the arbitrary limit of 10 names, voters could face still more years of a ballot logjam, with Clemens and Bonds taking up just enough space on just enough ballots to squeeze other strong candidates from remaining there.

Perhaps, then, it is time to face this reality: Vote for Bonds and Clemens, and you are throwing those votes away. The veterans’ committee, not the writers, is destined to be their final arbiter. The writers should focus on the candidates who actually have a chance.

Of course, for voters willing to overlook possible steroid use, it seems to defy logic to pass on the best players up for election. For them — on a ballot not limited to 10 choices — the boxes next to Bonds and Clemens should be the first checked.

But under the current system, if they continue to vote for Bonds and Clemens, they are effectively limiting their ballot to eight spaces — not nearly enough for a field this crowded. And too many strong candidates will disappear as a casualty.

There are always token candidates on the ballot, players who should be proud of their careers but are obviously not Hall of Famers: Cliff Floyd, Eddie Guardado, Jason Schmidt and so on. But there are also current candidates with dangerously low vote totals whose careers compare favorably with some players already in the Hall of Fame.

Nineteen players in baseball history had a career slash line of .300/.400/.500 or better — that is batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage — with at least 5,000 plate appearances. Everyone on the list who is eligible for the Hall of Fame is in, except Edgar Martinez and Larry Walker.

Martinez got 25.2 percent of the vote last winter, Walker 10.2 percent. Maybe they belong in Cooperstown, maybe not. But their cases should be allowed to unfold over time, as they did for Bert Blyleven, Jim Rice and Bruce Sutter. Each of those players recovered from widespread early rejection to eventually cross 75 percent.

The candidacy of Fred McGriff (11.7 percent) is also dropping, despite an O.P.S. that was 50 points higher than Eddie Murray’s and 3 points shy of Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell, all of whom are in Cooperstown. Others who can make a case for enshrinement — like Lee Smith, Curt Schilling, Alan Trammell, Mike Mussina and Jeff Kent — all polled below 30 percent last winter.

Those candidates need to stay on the ballot, to keep the Hall of Fame debate about baseball. Under the current system, with its artificial limits on voters’ choices, the best way to do that is to not vote for Bonds and Clemens, and let them fall off the writers’ ballot.

In time, the veterans committee will oversee their cases. The verdict from this court is clear.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: In Hall Vote, Tainted Candidates and Split Tickets. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe